Renews Sanction Monitors for Darfur

The UN Security Council has renewed a mandate for sanction monitors for Darfur, adding a statement along with it cautioning nations against providing any aid, training, spare parts, or anything else related to a weapons system despite no specific sanctions banning such things.

The existing sanctions ban providing any direct support to the Sudanese attack on Darfur, and specific guarantees from Sudan that any hardware sold to them won’t be used in Darfur. Today’s statement is effectively that they don’t believe those promises anymore.

Since the wording of the sanctions is that they only need those guarantees, it isn’t clear how the statement of concern will effect any future Sudanese deals. The Sudanese government slammed the statement, saying they reject the “fallacious claims” and that the aircraft parts are for civilian craft, not military.